Just not Sharp up front
Evertonians have been brought up on swashbuckling centre-forwards but there is a big hole in that area of the pitch right now and while it might sound like a broken record when banging on about it, until they remedy the situation, the point must continue to be laboured. It will no doubt be an issue not lost on Graeme Sharp, a man second only to Dixie Dean in Everton’s all-time scoring charts, now a non-executive director and Players’ Life President, who was sat next to director of football Kevin Thelwell, the man tasked with obtaining such a recruit in these final 10 days of the transfer window in Fleetwood Town’s main stand last night.
While manager Frank Lampard has pointed out that the Blues’ current incumbent of the famous number nine jersey Dominic Calvert-Lewin is a current England international and one of the best in the business – certainly aerially – when available, it seems at best naïve and at worst potentially disastrous for the club to put all their eggs in this one basket. Calvert-Lewin’s latest ‘freak’ injury as Lampard described it might not be related to the problems he suffered last season but given that fitness issues restricted the 25-year-old to just 15 Premier League starts last term, it would seem obvious that Everton required more options up front for the current campaign given that Richarlison was sold, Cenk Tosun released and both Ellis Simms and Lewis Dobbin sent out on loan.
Like he did against Nottingham Forest on Saturday, Salomon Rondon at least gave the Blues attack a focal point and the Venezuelan veteran knows what is required to lead the line in the Premier League after previous relatively fruitful spells at West Bromwich Albion and Newcastle United. However, time seems to have caught up with a player who has never been the quickest and who will be 33 next month. Once you’ve dropped down to play in the likes of China and Russia, it’s difficult at that advanced stage of your career to get back up to the levels required to cut it in the Premier League, world football’s most-competitive domestic division.
Rondon netted just once in 20 Premier League games last season but given that he bagged a brace against non-League Boreham Wood in the FA Cup, the trip to third tier Fleetwood represented the opportunity for him to get up and running yet he spurned all the opportunities that came his way. Are Everton casting their recruitment net too widely rather than focusing in on specific targets and in danger of missing out all together?
Let’s hope not because as Lampard himself admitted after the game, “we need to improve there” and “it’s an area we’re focussed on for sure.” It’s imperative that the Blues get deals done – and the right deals – before the month is out to provide more finishing power as they simply cannot continue to be this toothless up top after the transfer window closes.
VERDICT: Amadou Onana learns 'uncomfortable' lesson as Anthony Gordon question lingers after Everton win
PLAYER RATINGS: Demarai Gray lively and Nathan Patterson impressive at Fleetwood Town
Changing of the guard
When Nathan Patterson arrived at Everton in January just a fortnight before Rafael Benitez was sacked, he was brought in as Seamus Coleman’s long-term replacement. That’s still the plan but in the short-term the two of them can at times both be accommodated within the same side and the game at Fleetwood Town saw them play alongside each other for the first time.
Going back to those great Blues centre-forwards of yesteryear, Dean and Tommy Lawton actually lined up together nine times with the old master helping to pass on the baton to the young protégé. The age gap between the 1930s pair was similar to the 13 years that separate Coleman and Patterson and while Everton’s captain has seen off many pretenders to his throne over the years, including World Cup winner Djibril Sidibe, at 34 in October, the sands of time might finally have to be taken into consideration.
Carlo Ancelotti, who picked the likes of Alessandro Costacurta and Paolo Maldini for Milan in their fifth decade, declared while at Goodison Park that Coleman could play until he was 40 but the aforementioned physical demands of the Premier League are greater than those of the slower-paced Serie A so one way the Irishman could extend his playing time could be through the move inside to a more central role in a Lampard back three like he did at Highbury Stadium. Replacing Tony Hibbert, when in his prime, Coleman revolutionised the right-back position at Everton with the added attacking elements expected in the modern game and Patterson – lively in both boxes here – is now carrying on from where he left off.
Gray days
With Everton struggling so badly in the centre-forward position, Demarai Gray’s rediscovering of his scoring boots could not be more timely. He wasn’t even supposed to be playing at Fleetwood but an injury to Tom Davies in the warm-up ensured his late inclusion and ultimately ensured the Blues won the tie with Gray netting the winning having been teed up by Alex Iwobi, who presumably would have been playing back on the wing but was now restored to the central midfield role he’s impressed in all season.
Before Nottingham Forest, Gray hadn’t found the net under Lampard and you had to go back to Hull City in the third round of the FA Cup for his last goal or his dramatic last-gasp winner against Arsenal in December for one in the Premier League. At 26, Gray should be approaching the peak of his powers and he has all the attributes to succeed but just needs to make it happen himself.
Along with Lampard, as a former boss of East Midlands rivals Derby County, Gray was getting dogs abuse from Nottingham Forest’s away support at Goodison Park at the weekend, with them branding him a “Leicester reject.” While such ‘banter’ from an excitable but rustic bunch of fans, looking and sounding every inch the boys from the Championship on their day out in the big city after their return to the top flight after over two decades away with antiquated shouts of “sign on” directed at the hosts, Gray shouldn’t lose much sleep over that but he could soon find himself at a crossroads.
A threat whenever he gets the ball and drives at opponents, Gray initially appeared a snip after Everton prised him away from Bayer Leverkusen for just £1.7million but at other times, the reasons why his fortunes have waxed and waned also appeared obvious. With such directness glaringly lacking in the final third around him right now, this is a big chance for Gray to re-establish himself and produce some degree of consistency worthy of his mercurial talents.
Blooding the youngsters
Given that he’d only played a minute of first team football for Everton before this tie, few of us had seen much of Reece Welch so far and a colleague in the Fleetwood Press Box was taken aback by the teenage defender’s size, proclaiming: “He’s going to be a big lad when he grows up!” Not 19 until next month, the Huddersfield-born centre-back already seems to have a couple of centimetres on the likes of Amadou Onana and Yerry Mina who are the Blues’ tallest outfield players but he remains of course a baby at this level.
Like Onana, Welch came in for some rough treatment at times from Fleetwood’s hatchet men who, as predicted by Michael Ball in his ECHO column, would be “harassing us, kicking you and trying every trick in the book to frustrate you” but he stood up to the task and looked generally assured in possession. As you’d expect from such a towering figure at the back, he was aerially dominant although one defensive header ended up spiralling towards his own net before Asmir Begovic clawed it away for a corner-kick.
After getting a run-out of over an hour, Welch made way for the more-experienced James Tarkowski who can more than handle himself against physical opponents but that wasn’t the end for Everton’s youngsters as Lewis Warrington and then Stanley Mills both entered the fray. With five substitutes now allowed across the board for Lampard – although he’s not been using his full quota so far – there could be increased opportunities of game time for the club’s young prospects this term and all of them involved here will be better for coming through this test.
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